Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) (10 page)

“So?”

“I do like you.”

That caught her off guard. He was different, again, from the man who’d trapped her in his office earlier in the day. “Which Nick are you tonight? Good Nick or Bad Nick?”

He cocked his head at that, and then he grinned. Not a half-smile, a grin—but not exactly mirthful, either. She couldn’t figure it. He was so hard to read, always. Inscrutable. “I’m always Bad Nick,
bella
. But I’m good to people I care about.”

“And you care about me?”

“I seem to.”

She tried to ignore the way her stupid heart skittered at that. “Why?”

“I like your spark. Tell me about your scars.” He’d barely moved throughout this conversation—or was it another interrogation?

“I’ve only ever told people I trusted.”

“So trust me.”

She wasn’t so far gone for him that she didn’t see the absurdity in that statement. “Why should I? You’re holding me against my will.”

“Aren’t you trusting me with your life, then?”

She laughed and then grunted at the sharp twinge that followed. “God. You know how twisted that sounds? I don’t have a choice. You took my choice away.”

“I didn’t drag you to my table last night.”

“So, what—I wanted a night with you, and now we’re stuck together?”

“Is that all you wanted? Tell me about your scars, Beverly.”

His dogged return to that single demand was wearing her down. But not enough to tell him the story. “It’s old news. I had a rough time as a kid. It got to be too much. I thought it was too much.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen. It was literally more than half my life ago. I’m not that girl. Are you the same person you were when you were fifteen—however long ago that was?”

“Thirty years. And no.”

“Good. Can we stop talking about it now?”

He didn’t answer in the affirmative or otherwise. He stared at her, still unmoving, his hand holding his glass of scotch on the arm of the sofa. Then he drank it down. “Why feathers?”

“What?” Maybe it was the concussion, or waking up from a Percocet sleep, or maybe this conversation was just strange, but she felt two steps behind.

“Your ink.” He nodded at her arm. “Why feathers?”

Oh. That answer she gave him, free of evasion. She looked down at her wrist. She loved these feathers. They gave her strength. “When I did it, I felt crushed by the weight of everything that was wrong. The feathers remind me that we choose the weight of the problems on our shoulders. Now I choose not to let my problems weigh me down.” A philosophy she would do well to remember right now.

He smiled, and this one was real. Again, his face transformed, and he was Good Nick, with lively green eyes and a perfect mouth. “That’s a great answer.”

Some of her petulance from earlier reared up. “Do I get a gold star, or something?”

He didn’t lose that smile, but he cocked his head, squinting at her slightly. “Do you understand why you can’t tell people what’s going on?”

“I think I understand enough. You’re a mobster, or a Mafioso, or whatever you call yourselves, and you want to be able to handle the problem yourself. You don’t want people to have anything to tell cops or whoever asks.”

“I’m a Pagano. That’s what we call ourselves. And yeah, we have secrets. I need you to keep ours. Can I trust you to do that?”

“My feelings about the police are ambivalent. So yes. I’ll keep your secrets. I’m not sure what I even know.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just say nothing. To anyone. Agreed?”

“Agreed. Can I go home?”

“In the morning. You’re still not safe, so I’m keeping a watch on you. And I want you to stay in your apartment, or mine, until I say otherwise. But in the morning, when Donnie’s back, if you want, you can go back to your place.”

“I want.” She almost thanked him, but pulled the words back. She was not about to thank her captor for releasing her. “I’m going back to bed.”

He nodded. “Good night,
bella
. Your pills are on the counter, if you need them.”

She did, but she walked past them anyway.

~ 7 ~

As Nick stepped onto the front porch, Uncle Ben’s front door opened, and Sal, one of the soldiers on guard, moved aside.

“Morning, boss.”

Nick stepped into the foyer. “Sal.”

Aunt Angie came into the main hall, wiping her hands on a towel. “Nicky!” She tossed the towel onto her shoulder and hurried forward, her arms out. “How are you,
carino
?”

“I’m good, Auntie. I didn’t get hurt.” He let his aunt hug him hard. Angie was tall for a woman, taller than Uncle Ben with her heeled shoes, but she still pulled Nick down so she could get her arms around his neck. She had been a glamorously beautiful young woman and had aged into stately handsomeness as she approached eighty.

She clutched his shoulders and leaned back, then grabbed his cheek in one hand and gave it a hard, pinching shake. Nick closed his eyes and withstood this painful affection he’d been assaulted with his entire life. “Still. What kind of man does such a thing? Blowing up your car. This is America!” She let his cheek go with a slap. “Come, have an espresso. Your uncle isn’t down yet. This is early for him, you know.”

When she turned and headed back down the hall toward her palatial kitchen, Nick followed, rubbing his cheek. Italian women and their brutal affections.

He sat at the marble counter, and Angie poured him a small cup of strong, dark espresso. “How is Brian?”

“Good. Healing well. We’re bringing him home tonight.”

Her carefully-groomed eyebrows arched up. “So soon? It’s only a few days.”

“Hospitals get you home as fast as possible. And he’s safer at home.”

As if she saw the sense in that, she nodded. Then she got a sharp look in her hazel eyes. “And what of this girl who was with you? I saw the picture that’s all over the news. That wasn’t Vanessa you were kissing.”

Not even his mother had said anything about that, but Angelina Pagano, donna of the family, let nothing go unnoticed or unsaid. “Vanessa is over.”

One eyebrow outpaced the other on their climb up her forehead. “Good. I didn’t like her. There was disdain on her face all the time—she won’t be so pretty when she’s old if she doesn’t start smiling. But you move quickly, Nicky. Who is this new kissing partner?”

“Auntie, no. I kissed her hand to make her feel better. Don’t make more of it.”

It was more than that, and he knew it. He liked Beverly. Since the bombing, he’d come to like her a lot, and it was more than physical attraction or even a sense of responsibility. She’d fought him, stood up for herself. He’d seen the fear in her eyes, but she’d stood her ground despite it. That was real courage. Right alongside the fear was that spark, giving her power, giving her light.

His life was mostly darkness. Lately, since Church, it had seemed entirely dark. Beverly’s light felt like a beacon.

And that was some fucked-up thinking, and he needed to get control of it.

His smart, domineering aunt leaned on the counter, over her own espresso. “Have you looked at that picture that’s going around?”

It really was going around. It was getting shared out of context, too. Like that photo he’d seen a few years back of some protest or another, of a couple lying in the middle of the street, kissing. Somehow, he knew that his version of that was going to make his life more complicated. “Of course I saw it. Probably before you did.”

“No—have you
looked
at it? Really looked at it? Because I have. There’s something in the way you look at her I haven’t seen before. You like this one. You should bring her for dinner.”

“Jesus, Auntie. No.”

“Language, Nicky. Don’t blaspheme in my house.” She gestured to the crucifix on the wall. “He is watching.”

“Who is watching?” Ben entered the room. He was dressed in a double-breasted dove-grey suit, a white shirt, and a charcoal grey silk tie. He looked dapper and in control, the don everyone respected. “Nick.”

“Uncle.” Nick embraced him and kissed his cheek. “You look good this morning.”

“I slept well. I hope you did, too. Today is an important day.” He went around the counter and kissed his wife. “And who’s watching?”

“The Lord.” Angie turned and prepared an espresso for Ben.

“Ah. Yes. Not too closely, I hope.” He took his cup and saucer. “Come, nephew. We should talk before we go.”

Nick agreed. He leaned over the counter and kissed his aunt’s cheek, then finished his espresso and followed Uncle Ben to his study.

~oOo~

Ben sat on one of the long, leather sofas. Nick sat on the other, facing him. “We should talk strategy before the Council meets.”

“No. Strategy is for after. For the Council, I will simply explain to them our problem, how it’s also their problem, and what’s next. You’ll be quiet unless I say otherwise.”

Nick sat up straight, surprised and insulted. “Please? Uncle, I—”

Ben shut him down with a brisk wave of his hand. “No. Listen. You are the right man to be at my side. You are smart and careful—thorough. You see everything, and you see long distance. You are a good underboss, and someday you will be a great don. But I can feel your disrespect, Nicolo.”

“No, Uncle. You have my complete respect.” Nick felt an unfamiliar kind of wariness rising up in his chest. He had not expected this conversation at all.

Ben shook his head. “I don’t. You think I am past my expiration date. You think I’m making mistakes. You think I don’t know how to fight Church. Your frustration shows.” He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Chastened and uncertain, Nick answered quietly. “I love you. You’re my godfather. You saved my family. And you’re my don. You have my eternal respect and devotion. But no, I don’t think you’ve made your wisest choices lately.”

Ben sat back and laced his hands across his midsection. “We don’t speak of your father’s troubles.”

No, they didn’t. Ben had put a gag order on that as soon as it had happened. Thirty years ago. “No. I apologize.”

With a nod and a wave, Ben set that aside. “But I want you to think about the rest of it. More than fifty years, your father and I ran Pagano Brothers. We took our father’s business and built it up. We made our own business side by side with it. And those businesses have been running unimpeded since. We do things the way we do them because it works. We keep a low profile. We don’t make things harder for elected officials or law enforcement. We make things easier for them, professionally as well as personally. And they make room for us to do our work. You think we’re struggling against Church because I don’t know how to fight him. I’m saying to you now that he’s not the first
cafone
to think he could reach high enough to spit in my face. And yet here I stand, my face dry. The old way is still the way because it wins.”

Frustration began to filter into his blood, but Nick remained calm and respectful. “You’re right, Uncle. What you’ve built, what you’ve kept going, is an impressive empire. There is a lot to be said for the way you did things to get so far. But the world
is
changing. There aren’t as many people like us, who are willing to do it right. They want the fast return. Auberon’s hole got filled by a lot of lower players, with Church in the lead, and they
are
changing the game. Eighteen months we’ve been swatting Church away. Maybe he hasn’t spit in your face yet, but he takes a bite every time he lunges.”

“You want to play his game.”

“I want to beat him at it, yes.”

“No. Make him play ours. That’s the strategy for this Jackie Stone thing. Under no circumstances do we end up working with a drug cartel. Drugs are not part of our world, and they will not be as long as I draw breath—and I hope you agree with me. We will give no time to these crazy Colombians who make spectacles of themselves and think they’re sending messages about their power. Those ‘messages’ are nothing more than notes from lunatics. We have a way, nephew. We have a way.”

Nick took a breath and let it out, making sure it did not come off as a sigh. “So, what help do you want from the Marconis?”

“No. What we’re doing is offering our help.”

“Please?” That was a complete inversion of the plan they’d had in place. The sit-down was less than two hours away. But his uncle seemed perfectly calm.

“We help the Marconis drive the Colombians out of Connecticut. That compromises this Stone and gives you the leverage you need to make him turn on Church. It strengthens the Council as a whole, and it might bring all the families together behind us against Church. He’s been pushing business into all the neighborhoods. We can fight him there.
Capisce
?”

Nick sat back abruptly, stunned to silence. He sat there, his uncle’s eyes steady on him, and worked through everything Ben had said, all the angles he could see. Ben was going at Church from the perimeter.

It was fucking brilliant.

“It could definitely work. But it’s not a quick solution.”

“The right way never is, Nick.” He put his hand on the arm of the sofa and pushed himself to stand. “Come on. We should get moving.”

Nick stood, too, and followed his uncle toward the door. Before he could open it, Ben put his arm across his back. “When we have time, you and I are going to talk about J.J. You need to get on board with him as a capo.”

Nick didn’t see that happening, but he nodded. Hell, maybe Ben was right.

~oOo~

The Council never met in the same location. Generally, the family who called the meeting hosted in their neighborhood. But in this case, Ben had called the meeting for a location in Danbury, the scene of the upcoming exchange between Jackie Stone and the Zapata cartel. The Paganos were still hosting, arranging for the room and for the meal that would precede the meeting, but Ben had thought it would resonate more to meet so near the location in question.

He was right, of course.

The Council families had not beefed since Nick had been a lowly soldier. Peace and prosperity had reigned for years. Tensions were simmering on low heat lately, though, because Church was making a lot of noise. That noise brought the Paganos attention in counterproductive ways, and all the families felt it.

So the meeting was overdue. Yet all the bosses met as friends: Enzo Marconi. Gianni Abbatantuono. Vito Conti. Gabriel Sacco. And Ben Pagano. Each man brought his administration—underboss and consigliere—to the table. Soldiers and guards were fed elsewhere.

Ben had chosen a warehouse owned by a business affiliate. Each family had agreed and then sent in a man to do a security sweep. By the time the meeting took place, the space had been transformed into something like an elegant dining room, with a vast, mahogany table, upholstered arm chairs all around, and a uniformed wait staff—handpicked and cleared by the families.

In the way of tradition, the meal was first. Ben had explained long ago, before Nick had even been made, that men who broke bread together had a bond thereafter, and would be respectful and conscientious negotiators. Nick believed that such a bond only held when the men were of a similar mind in the first place, and when it behooved every man present equally to be of that mind. But sitting at his uncle’s right through this meal, he could not find cause to dispute the old way.

Still, it was difficult for Nick to understand the expense his uncle had gone to, on short notice, for the meeting. Everything had been arranged as a celebration. Lunch was osso buco served with risotto on gold-trimmed china dishes and eaten with sterling flatware. Amarone flowed into crystal goblets. Great baskets of mixed breads lined the center of the table. Before they ate, each man toasted his thanks to Uncle Ben, taking his moment to make a little speech, and then Ben toasted his thanks right back for their attendance.